e were "Lotario,"
1729; "Partenope," 1730; "Poro," 1731; "Ezio," 1732; "Sosarme," 1732;
"Orlando," 1733; "Ariadne," 1734; and also several minor works. Handel's
operatic career was not so much the outcome of his choice as dictated
to him by the necessity of time and circumstance. As time went on, his
operas lost public interest. The audiences dwindled, and the overflowing
houses of his earlier experience were replaced by empty benches. This,
however, made little difference with Handel's royal patrons. The king
and the Prince of Wales, with their respective households, made it
an express point to show their deep interest in Handel's success.
In illustration of this, an amusing anecdote is told of the Earl of
Chesterfield. During the performance of "Rinaldo" this nobleman, then
an equerry of the king, was met quietly retiring from the theatre in the
middle of the first act. Surprise being expressed by a gentleman who
met the earl, the latter said: "I don't wish to disturb his Majesty's
privacy."

Handel paid his singers in those days what were regarded as enormous
prices. Senisino and Carestini had each twelve hundred pounds, and
Cuzzoni two thousand, for the season. Toward the end of what may be
called the Handel season nearly all the singers and nobles forsook him,
and supported Farinelli, the greatest singer living, at the rival house
in Lincoln's Inn Fields.

IV.

From the year 1729 the career of Handel was to be a protracted battle,
in which he was sometimes victorious, sometimes defeated, but always
undaunted and animated with a lofty sense of his own superior power.
Let us take a view of some of the rival musicians with whom he came
in contact. Of all these Bononcini was the most formidable. He came to
England in 1720 with Ariosti, also a meritorious composer. Factions
soon began to form themselves around Handel and Bononcini, and a bitter
struggle ensued between these old foes. The same drama repeated itself,
with new actors, about thirty years afterward, in Paris. Gluck was then
the German hero, supported by Marie Antoinette, and Piccini fought for
the Italian opera under the colors of the king's mistress Du Barry,
while all the _litterateurs_ and nobles ranged themselves on either
side in bitter contest. The battle between Handel and Bononcini, as the
exponents of German and Italian music, was also repeated in after-years
between Mozart and Salieri, Weber and Rossini, and to-day is seen in
the acrimonious